“Follow what you are genuinely passionate about and let that guide you to your destination.” – Diane Sawyer

So, as the years go by, the months roll past, the days march on and the minutes continue to tick forward, there is something that is becoming abundantly clear to me: I have a passion for portraiture and photography and the arts, but even beyond that, I love finding the beauty in people and then drawing it out with retouching and processing.

Sometimes, I use scrapped images like this and just sit down and rework them because I have a need and a passion to fix it, clean it up, or polish off any distracting flaws to uncover the person I find through conversation, interaction, self-reflection, and the overall photo shoot experience.

Just like people, they are all unique. A sparkle in one person’s eyes may be what is needed to make them shine, for someone else, it may be how the light contours and caresses their cheek. You never know until you start to work and begin the process.

Sometimes, I am influenced by a story, or other times by music that may be playing – it all depends and it always changes. The one major constant is that I love to do it.

I love to to learn about it, talk about it, share it, educate people about it, and just do it. Even when I work on images of myself, I see where I have beauty and I remove the distractions. I don’t change who I am, I just uncover it in anew introspective way each time.

So, as you may now understand, I am passionate about what it is that I do…

“A song she heard
Of cold that gathers
Like winter’s tongue
Among the shadows
It rose like blackness
In the sky
That on volcano’s
Vomit rise
A Stone of ruin
From burn to chill
Like black moonrise
Her voice fell still…”

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” ― Mae West

I can be glamorous, fashion conscious, and fierce, but behind all that is just an ordinary, quirky girl that loves her family, friends, and feels the weight of the world.

This is a fairly candid self-portrait for the February Art of Self Portraiture of me being me and doing what the normal folk do – painting my nails in a room full of artifacts and memorabilia from the moments in life worth living!

A cloud was cast in grays and coals;
I though there would be more time.
The courage you showed in living through;
that spark will be immortalized in the tapestry of time.

I wished that you hadn’t gone so sudden,
I wished you hadn’t been in pain,
I wished you had more years left to shine, and
Ultimately, I wished for you to find peace from it all.

When you took your last breath, when you dispersed your energy
to the vastness of all creation;
I shed tears – ones of sadness, of mourning, loss, and goodbyes.

There is a need, a desire, to have more time,
but there is also a sense of happiness knowing your light is enveloping us all.
When cast in skin, you could only go so far, but now you are ever-reaching and unending.

There is a joy that can be felt in this.

To you, I wish you peace and light – to me, I wish to carry you with me always.
I shed a tear for you and for myself, but not all will drop in melancholy.

In remembrance of those who have come into my life and passed before I was ready, I share this image and words.